


phase change

by actinide



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Background Relationships, Blood, Blood and Gore, Dream Bubbles, Experimental Style, F/M, Gen, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Incest, Incest, M/M, Messy Narrative on Purpose, Multi, Not Epilogue Compliant, POV Multiple, Post-Canon, The Homestuck Epilogues, Vomiting, epilogue compliant, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-06 08:33:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19059040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actinide/pseuds/actinide
Summary: It has been almost two years since Dirk proved himself the villain of someone else's narrative. He has been waiting patiently for Dave to catch up ever since. Perhaps if he were not so self-absorbed, he might notice Rose was plotting against him.Maybe being the ultimate anything is more of an ultimate joke than he originally thought.





	phase change

**Author's Note:**

> In which we watch Dirk break apart in splinters while Rose watches, and we hope desperately for the redemption of a character who may no longer deserve it.  
> The narrative is messy. Try to keep up.
> 
> Further trigger warnings in the notes but! The main one would be for a shifting narrative, and it is... really weird lol  
> it is also very heavily color coded and that does KIND of matter bc while i'm not willing to use the gaudy epilogue text, i did deign to use color as a way to guide the story!

A man stands alone in his bedroom. He is twenty-six years old and he’s  already gettin’ real goddamn tired of dealing with this trope, as well as the narrative bullshit in general.

Listen, it’s funny for awhile.

But after you’ve been in control long enough, shit starts to get pretty fuckin’ boring, doesn’t it? What’s the point of it all, if there’s no one around to watch you work? To applaud your success, to cheer you on through your inescapable failure. Yeah, you’re setting the stage, but for whom?

Rose and a depressed troll don’t make for the best audience.

Not that it matters. Even if he was bored (and he is, in the same way he’s always a little bit bored, hard to please, easily distracted and oozing excess energy like a wound oozes blood, like unrewarded hyperfocus slipping through the cracks until I crack until he cracks because when there’s no one around to challenge you, to fight for dominance when it’s so easily handed right back into your waiting grasp, the boredom crawls in and devours you whole), everything is perfectly under control, and exactly where he wants it to be.

In recent years, almost everything is always where he wants it to be.

So a man stands alone in his bedroom, but it’s not really a bedroom, aside from the bed, because this is a ship and ships have cabins, and spending time alone in your cabin, letting the mind wander and circle until it consumes itself, has never been a particularly good look for anyone.

Dirk wipes a hand down his face. He’s not a fucking anime character, but he is exhausted. Dirk is always exhausted. Which is to say, I am always exhausted.

That’s the shit they don’t tell you about ultimate selves. Or ultimate anythings.

It doesn’t actually solve shit. Perhaps that says more about my splinters than any of us would prefer. Not to say it’s any more complicated, either. I have never slept well. This is no surprise to anyone. To meld into all versions of oneself, all at once, or little by little, is no minor feat. I reckon at a point you’d stop noticing, if the thoughts weren’t so violently intrusive.

So I don’t sleep.

Most of the time.

And because I don’t sleep, and because I might be insane, (but who knows, really. Not everyone would approve of this horseshit. If I weren’t me, I sure as fuck wouldn’t), I also understand the anathema surrounding a first person narrative and the absolutely astronomical levels of self-involved, masturbatory limitations it sets for the reader.

And we can’t have that, can we?

So a man stands alone in a cabin, and he is mean, and he is cruel, or he’s analytical, or he’s driven, and he is wiping one gloved hand across his eyes to relieve some of the pressure burning behind them.

Hey, no one ever said being a god meant being perfect.

And if they had, in the past, or any time recently, perhaps they might be inclined to agree that they were full of shit at the time.

He still has days yet until the cavalry arrives. Tentatively, anyhow. He does not put it beyond Dave to speed up the process in any way he can, and since he all but shook loose from the confines of Dirk’s (admittedly shaky, at this point) grasp on the narrative, there is little to be done to stop him.

Not that Dirk would, of course. That would be playing against his own hand, and he does not, despite perhaps his own protests, consider himself a betting man.

That being said, there is still time to kickstart this new planet, to discuss ascendance with Terezi (debatable potential there, really, and she has reservations, beside), and to see if past mistakes (and yes he’s made them I’ve made them more than I can count enough to consume to eat away but god what I’ve done for the good of everyone ) cannot be ( and forgive the phrasing) resurrected.

The false image of a young woman raps lightly on the open doorframe, and Dirk peeks through his fingers to stare at her.

Rose is a sight to behold, always. At least as a bot, as Rosebot, specifically, and isn’t that something? Isn’t that everything you strove to achieve? Automaton perfection, flawless, unappreciated kindness, mechanical genius, you really outdid yourself, didn’t you? It’s too bad that you had to resort to this, isn’t it?

You

I could have done better, I know. I know, Jesus dicks I know, I could have done more, I could have worked harder, we know, we know, we all fuckin’ know. Let’s move on.

Dirk’s bots almost move like humans, and there is beauty in her false eyelashes as she blinks, in the fabricated softness of her mouth when she presses her lips together, so human, so strikingly like Dave that you ache, just for a moment.

Well well. Looks like we’ve got a challenger.

“You’re learning,” Dirk says. An observation. A compliment. To an audience of no one his face would appear flat, uninterested.

Rose can see the smile that ticks at the corner of his mouth, and it’s so much like Dave, enough that she resents the fact that they share the trait at all. “I hardly think it appropriate for you to put words into my mouth now, of all times. You know it isn’t nearly as effective now as it should be.”

“No,” Dirk agrees, and he tugs at the sleeves of his hoodie, still discomfited by the change in temperature, as if he could not simply alter it whenever he feels like.

A cold ship for a cold man with a broken heart.

And if not broken, at least splintered, perhaps beyond repair.

“Which is why I said: you’re learning. I’d tell you I’m impressed but quite frankly you’re behind the curve. I expected sooner, and perhaps a touch better.”

“Forgive me, father dearest, I was busy,” Rose all but drawls, voice as near to venomous and needling as she is capable. “Dying. One could say was a bit distracted at the time, with someone else’s perceived idea of what illness looks like.”

“Rollin’ my eyes here, Rose,” Dirk says, and he crosses the room, cracks his knuckles idly as he goes. He does not think much of it, of course, but Rose recognizes her own brother’s nervous traits from a mile away. He is not nearly as pleased as he makes himself out to be. With her new skill comes new threats, pathways he cannot predict without, perhaps, the capabilities of one who has a certain talent leaning towards fortune.

“Fortune-telling is what hacks call it,” he tells her dryly, but he’s slipping on his shoes, isn’t looking at her. It is almost something like weakness.

She ignores him. “Not all parties crave a heavy hand, you know,” she purrs, and the metallic note to her voice is predatory, smug in a way that pleases Dirk, and in the back of his mind, concerns him. “Some matters require a delicate touch.”

The implication hangs in the air between them and Rose is not the first to break. It’s still unclear where she got that, the unending fount of patience. She hardly practices it, has always been rash, and there’s little to no chance at all that she got it from you.

“Cute, really, but I can’t put you back,” Dirk says, shouldering past her. She curves easily out of his way, bending just enough that they never touch. “I can’t risk it, and quite frankly, neither can you.”

“So you’re afraid to lose me then,” she says, not afraid, never afraid of Dirk, despite the parts of him that may repulse her. He is not nearly as stoic as he pretends to be, and there are bits and pieces of the uncomfortable teen she grew to know, back before things went haywire. That one’s still a mystery, she supposes.

“I don’t remember ever sayin’ anything about fear,” he says. He does not shrug. “But your final death at my hands wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying as you think, or would want it to be.”

“You’re the one with the death wish, but I suppose I appreciate the sentiment, vaguely and in a somewhat detached way,” she sighs, following after.

The hallway between the private cabins and the main galley is not so long that it takes more than a moment via flashstep, to get from point A to point B. Dirk walks, for simplicity’s sake, and because his counterpart cannot.

“She could, if she wanted to,” Rose says, following after, and though she does not wear heels, the clink of her feet against the floor mimics the sound almost perfectly. “Fortunately I have better things to do than run around and flip out with my sword.”

“I could still make you one, if you wanted,” he offers, choosing not to take offense. The slight dig may have eaten into him, at a younger age, but now, as he is, the insult rolls off his back like water off a goddamn duck’s.

“I find there is little need for a weapon when I am simply built to be one, now,” she says primly, but it cuts, shallow, insignificant, stinging as much as it intends to.

Dirk cannot help the frown that creases the corner of his mouth. “I didn’t want it to be this way,” he says, cracked at the edges, always splinters. Dirk is not weak in the ways that are easy to perceive, but his ego wavers to care for those he holds dear, no matter how terrible he is at showing it.

“Oh father,” she says, mechanical and malevolent, “if only you did anything but lie.”

A small piece of him peels away at that, demands that he would never lie, that it is against his nature. Dirk stomps that back down.  Sorry, hombre. This is my show now.  “Whether you decide to believe me or not is your own prerogative. I can hardly force your hand on the matter.”

“I believe you could try, were you inclined to do so,” she says, and there is nothing pretty about the way her mouth can frown. “But I will pretend, for your benefit, to be eternally grateful that you are not.” She keeps pace with him easily, despite the half foot difference between them.

Somewhere between nineteen and twenty-one, Dirk grew three more inches, and at twenty-six, he has yet to fill them to his own satisfaction, reedy, less-defined than perhaps he had imagined being at this age.

All in good time, I suppose.

“I’m inclined to goddamn remind you that I saved your life,” Dirk grunts, and there’s no good coffee in space, go fucking figure, but that doesn’t stop him from trying every damn day to make it happen. He’s never been much for proper cooking.

“Gesture not appreciated, I’m afraid,” Rose sighs, the only way she can. She does not need to breathe anymore, but the drama of a well-placed sigh calls to her. “You lied to my wife, and were cruel to her, on top of it.”

Dirk is quiet while they wait for the coffee machine to spit to life, and it is a long moment before he willingly speaks. Failure, another failure. Sacrifice, something given for the greater good. “Forty-eight percent of couples who marry in their teens end up getting a divorce. Perhaps I was simply expediting the process.”

“I rather think that was my own decision to make,” Rose says, and she’d lean into him, physically imposing in all the ways her human body currently isn’t, but he holds her at bay by threads, finely woven, spun with pieces of herself she isn’t yet ready to face. "Your cruelty will be your downfall, you know."

Dirk does not deign to give her his attention, instead watching the horrible brown sludge spill into his cup, steam rising up to waft in a way that feels false, if entirely picturesque.

She considers for a moment all the ways she could hurt him in this form, a killing machine. Stronger, faster, inhuman abilities that rivals anything she’s ever seen, ever known.

But then he looks at her, and there is something there in his eyes, so clear at this angle, sharp despite the lines that frame them, the exhaustion of trying to hold himself together.

It would be depressing, Rose thinks, if she did not find it such a big relief.

“I know,” is all he says, and there are fractures in his voice, tone even and neutral, like he didn’t hear her thoughts at all. That. Surprises her. Thrills her, sends a little rush of excitement from the base of her throat down to her toes.

Metaphorically, of course. She does so miss her human body. 

Then he turns away again, shut down and closed off, frigidity so sudden she can almost taste it.

If only her taste buds worked correctly at all.

“Trial and error, Rose,” he mumbles, as if to himself, and then he wraps a hand around the cup and wanders away with it, slow and trance-like.

She shouldn’t follow. When he gets like this it’s truly better to let him be, if only for the momentary peace it grants her. Were she feeling particularly charitable, she might say his behavior warrants worry, with his disjointed dialogue, the shifts in tone and attitude, how he moves in a matter most unsettling, like a,

Ah. Well. Let’s save that one for later, shall we? 

“You know what you’re doing is probably killing you faster,” she says, trailing after despite herself. There is a lack of satisfaction in his dismissal lately, with his edges worn down and his wires crossing timelines beyond his capabilities. He truly will end himself this way, and she wholeheartedly believes that to be the truth.

“Not if Dave gets there first,” he sighs simply, and that is enough to shut her up, at least for the moment.

She finds herself unsatisfied with the repartee it seems, same as usual. She is feeling brave today, he observes.

“I would say I am brave every day, or at the very least bold, and you are boring to think otherwise,” Rose scoffs. She loses some of the proper tone to her voice without vocal cords, but the message gets across, and isn’t that what truly matters? “I really wish you better understood the redundancy of viewing yourself as the ultimate version of anything other than perhaps the meaning of the word foolhardy. Creating a strawman form of yourself for your crush and his friends to fight seems rather pathetic, if you ask me.”

The speed with which he rounds on her is impressive, and were she human, she might have flinched. Instead she sees equal parts of herself and Dave in the way his expression burns through her, how the muscles in his jaw twitch, knuckles so white where they clutch the mug she’s surprised the ceramic doesn’t shatter. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, vitriol oozing through the cracks, a dam ready to burst forth and flood the room with his fury, his shame, his grief, the parts of himself he’s trapped so deep inside it’s almost impossible for her to tell who wants to die.

“You’re taking too much of them,” she observes instead, because she knows he won’t like it, and because it’s the truth. The human body was never made for ascendance, tenacity of the brain be damned. “Not sure if you’re familiar with our familial background,  _father_ , but we’re not exactly well known for handling addiction very well.”

“It’s not -” He inhales through his nose sharply, pulls back. The composure of his mask wavers and rebuilds before her eyes. “I wouldn’t classify anything I’ve ever done as any true kind of addiction, in that I’m not a slave to it, so much as it is a slave to me.”

“I think that you don’t really understand what I mean, but that while it’s not entirely okay, it is probably acceptable for the time being.”

“Noted,” Dirk says, mouth almost twisting into a bitter smile.

Rose is right, of course. To a point. I have been aware of it for awhile now. The perceived notion of the ultimate self, whether it truly exists in the first place, was perhaps not meant for the Prince of (currently) Fuckall. The temperament of my class is wholly unknown to all but myself and the ghost of a troll incel whose name hardly bears repeating. We suck, seems to be the general consensus. No surprise there. Whatever use it has had in other timelines, there is always a narrative cost, and I hardly find the reward worth the pennies, most days, if not all of them. What I have orchestrated to maintain the relevance of our continued existence is not pretty, and the side effects may be ugly, perhaps even disturbing. I might even come to regret my decision, in the end.

I would never admit that, however, because there is no proof that there is not a way for me to overcome it, and to give up now would be to put everything I have worked towards on the line, and I am no quitter.

“Have you told Terezi that her best bet for returning John to the mortal coil lies back on Earth?” Rose asks. She hasn’t brought up John in awhile. I suspect she feels partially responsible for sending him to his death, in a way, but given that particular subject makes her prickly, I take a step back. Give her a little space to develop on her own, as it were.

“You mean Jane?” Dirk says, and his gut does funny things at her mention. Jane, his sweet Jane. Moirail to be, the one person who always seemed to trust him, despite her skepticism. Oh how he pushed at her. So susceptible, after all those years of propaganda pulsing between her ears. It was like tipping a bowling pin with his foot.

This particular brand of guilt eats away at his insides like poison, twists him up, makes him feel sick. It is no wonder he never sleeps, really, with the way he has exploited the people who cared for him. You have ruined two of your very best friends, Dirk. What do you have to say for yourself?

He grits his teeth, does not let out the part of himself that desires forgiveness. “Reckon it wouldn’t be much of a fight,” he says, picks his words carefully. They do not come strained. “She cares deeply for John, and he is family, even if he was withdrawn towards his end.”

“Hmm,” Rose says, and he knows she is thinking of his focus on making her the first president of Earth, and again of John’s untimely demise.

“She truly is, despite what everyone may think, acting in the world’s best interest,” he says, perhaps a touch more defensive than he has a right to.

“I don’t really believe that,” she says, surprisingly venomous. “The Jane we met before hardly cared to know a thing about trolls at all, and I find it interesting that it is you and Roxy who had the poor history with trolls ‘taking over’ the planet, and I would say Roxy got over the ingrained resentment and paranoia a bit faster than you.”

Dirk sucks in air through his teeth, but he doesn’t answer, not yet, just leaves the kitchen and wanders over to the window that looks out over their chosen planet. The atmosphere is swirling blues and greens. It truly is a sight to behold. “That’s unfair. You don’t think it makes sense? After all the Condescension did to her? That she might be afraid of the rise of another empress to power?”

“Not without help, no,” Rose says, and she doesn’t need a real voice to get across exactly how bitter she feels about this. “Jane is ambitious on her own, I’ll admit, and has always been something leaning towards judgmental, but I would argue no more so than John, and her ambition has always been more focused on rebuilding the company left in ruination and cruelty than taking a seat of power in government.” She curls an artificial thumb around the edge of the doorframe, does not pick at it. “More than anything, your interference in the politics and development of a world you insist does not matter is astounding as much as it is disturbing.”

Dirk hums, sips his coffee. It is bitter, and he doesn’t let his lip curl at the way it clings to his tongue. He wishes desperately for orange soda, but it would hardly fit the moment. Perhaps given more time he would be willing to admit Jane was one of his mistakes. That the way he influenced her was entirely unfair, and that she deserved better than he as a friend. “It was an experiment, mostly. Coulda been worse,” he says instead, and he thinks of his fight for power against a dead being. Insufferable, cherubs.

“I don’t think that’s an acceptable answer,” Rose says, and she comes around to regard him, her almost father, not quite brother. Perhaps he would be more appealing, if he’d let go of the creepy human uncle act for good.

“Distasteful,” Dirk reminds her.

“You’re the one who pushes it,” she scoffs, and perhaps there is a bit of envy there, for the way his hands curl so carefully around the cup, how he can still feel the heat through his gloves. She misses things like that. Longs for them, really. “That isn’t fair,” Rose murmurs, but she doesn’t fight against him, and Dirk thinks that maybe he does owe her that much, if nothing else. What good is taste without the warmth to go with it.

"I will work harder to correct that, in the next iteration, if you'll have it," he says, as if to reassure.

She doesn't really want another iteration, of course, but the thought is at least a bit kinder than usual.

They sit in silence for several minutes, then, for lack of anything to say that isn't an argument. Rose knows she should check on Terezi, somewhere within the depths of the ship. They can only keep John on ice for so long, after all, and she must get dreadfully lonely. Or not. Rose remembers the versions of herself that were a touch closer to her, but they were never truly friends. And perhaps she does worry, an infinitesimal amount, that Terezi might blame her for John's death.

“I think I want to be alone for a bit,” Dirk says after the lull becomes narratively exhaustive, and this time he doesn’t push at her, leaves the door open. An experiment. A test.

Rose pauses, as if to consider. It is a taunt, of course, even if he does not view it that way. Access granted, at the expense of her own privacy. She resents that, to a point, that he assumes she would want to take his narrative by the lead, to dust it so perfectly with her own brand of, quite literal purple prose.

Perhaps all things are good in moderation.

She is aware of exactly who this person is, even if he isn’t, not yet. She can see all the pieces he’s crammed in there, like fractals, reflections of a good man, a complicated man, an objectively bad man, all shining through at once. Variations on a theme. How utterly like him.

When Rose looks at Dirk she does not see an ultimate self, but rather his ultimate downfall. His cruelty, his arrogance. It perhaps isn’t the kindest use of her abilities, but he’s made it clear he doesn’t care much for the agency of others, and to flay him piece by piece, layer by layer,

Like an onion.

Absolutely not like an onion. His and Dave’s obsession with that ridiculous movie never fails to amaze her. She is one level removed from disappointment.

“Everyone likes Shrek,” he huffs, and she uses that moment to observe the fragile bits of humanity that leak through, from the tick of his mouth to the twitch of his brow. That’s the shit people care about, at the base of it all. Microexpressions, the intimate observation of a god in motion, his flaws glaringly obvious to anyone that knows him well enough. Dirk’s greatest fear has never been an outside force, nor the failure of their civilization, the failure of his own. It has always been himself. Foolish, maybe. Tragic, definitely.

He looks at her then, doesn’t speak, scowl laced with warning, mouth twisting with more emotion than he usually likes to project, something he won’t act upon. He may try to conceal the softest parts of himself, but she is a Seer, and there is not a thing in the world he could do to hide the pallor of his skin, the way his hands tremble, ever so slightly, where they curl around the mug. It has been months since he has seen any kind of sun, surely, but the freckles cling stubbornly to his cheeks, tracing along the edge of his cheekbones and dancing across his nose, visible despite the hideous sunglasses he wears daily. His knuckles are red again, she notes, and the only thing his glare does is show her exactly how thin the skin beneath his eyes has gotten, circles in bruising shades of violet and indigo.

“Bit pretentious, don’t you think,” Dirk says, but he doesn’t rebuke her.

“Thought you liked pretentious,” she murmurs, tips her head in a mockery of her organic self. “You made it quite clear to near everyone we’ve ever known that you desperately required my exact flavor of grandiose, bordering on gaudy use of the English language.” She does pause to think about that for a moment. “Are we still allowed to call it English? I wouldn’t dare give Jake too much credit where it isn’t due.”

Dirk snorts, but it’s a nerve struck, and he’s two or three points away from shutting down. If she continues on this path, she may very well hit a wall.

Rose thinks it rather unfair for Dirk to limit their topics of conversation when he holds no reservations with Terezi, someone he has known at least half as long, and not nearly quite as well.

“She is an exemption from the rule,” he says, to no one, to the not so invisible narrator. “Exceptional among her peers, and I’d argue her species as a whole.” He drinks from his mug at her. Rude. “She’s clever, anyway, and it’s hard to pinpoint exactly how her powers work. That alone I find quite fascinating.”

Rose frowns at that, not impressed in the slightest. He is certainly something of a sycophant, her father.

“I take offense to that,” he says dryly.

Rose does not care, because though his words are not intended to be a personal slight, she is welcome to take it however she likes. It would be easy to lash out, she thinks. He welcomes it, expects it. Sh does not feel like playing along. “You cannot doom an entire species because of one defunct timeline, Dirk,” she says, gentles her voice, keeps it demure, unthreatening.

It’s a challenge for her.

Yes, but what good would life be without challenges to make it interesting?

“She doesn’t like you, you know,” Rose says, as dry as she is capable. “You have already lied to her more than I suspect anyone ever has, and for whatever reason it is, she cannot smell your bullshit and lies. Insulting her being a troll, on top of all that, is wholly unnecessary.”

Dirk shrugs, slurps his coffee noisily.

“You don’t truly hate them, do you?” she asks, though it breaks their rules of engagement. “You got along so well with Karkat back when he and Dave first moved in together.”

Dirk does not reply because he is too busy making it clear exactly how much he dislikes allowing her these inches, how quickly she turns them to miles. She knows (or at least has a sneaking suspicion) that Dirk very much opened himself up in pieces to make Dave comfortable, to make him happy, to let him breathe. It’s always been Dave, for Dirk, as long as he’s known him, possibly before. Always everything for Dave, anything, anything at all, to the point where watching him bend over backwards is almost sickening, in a fascinating, perhaps somewhat cruel kind of way.

“He’s my brother,” Dirk says, but it’s not a warning this time, just a statement, sad and low, and Rose sees the real Dirk in there, just for a heartbeat. The soft parts of him that still crawl through his veins live in these moments.

Dirk may imagine that Dave’s bro is the worst part he has lodged in his heart.

With Roxy’s mother trapped under the metallic surface of her skin, she understands that to be far from the truth. There are far, far worse things to be.

He will need to let go, one day. She is almost afraid of what that will mean, and she longs, in her own way, for things to return to how they were on their little patch of Earth. Before everyone fell apart.

Don’t you mean everything?

No, I do not.

Well. Dirk rubs a hand across his mouth, scratches idly at his brow as he takes another sip. I wish you did.

“I know,” Rose says, and she pulls away, releases the reins and lets them fall back into neutrality. She decides to leave him alone, after all, because to remain would mean playing his game, and she’s grown tired of that, much like she has many other things. It is almost a kindness.

“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” Dirk monotones, but he does not watch her go.

Cruelty suits Dirk Strider, she thinks, and he wears it well. But perhaps he should strive for true change, instead of an indomitable facade.

“I did hear that,” he says, a final call over his shoulder.

Rose does not deign to answer him, because as far as she is concerned, she’s already won.

 

It is not that Rose believes she is hiding much from Dirk. She doesn’t need to. He is so encapsulated in playing the roll of villain she is quite certain he hardly pays much attention to the frivolity of her day to day actions. The most important of which she does on standby, sitting in the currently abandoned workshop, inches from her corporeal form.

It is the safest way to do it, really, and there is some comfort gained from seeing herself still breathing, if only artificially. Dirk only uses the lab on level three, and Terezi never comes through here, she is certain. Has spent several weeks, perhaps upwards of months now, testing her theory. So far, no one has stopped her. She doesn’t plan on allowing them the opportunity.

She settles into the chair beside herself, plugs into the port attached there. It isn’t much, but there are worse ways to live, she supposes.

Rose breathes life into the dream in two point three seconds flat and no one is around to be impressed. The ship falls away, and she smells the grass first, feels the wind caress her cheek. There is a moment where she is surprised at the softness of her hands, how unevenly they curl into fists, the way the flat of her nails can dig so gently into her palms. She relishes in that. In being alive.

“Not like you to sleep so early, sis,” her favorite and only intruder says, and she turns to see him sitting on an ancient stump, green with moss and age, overlooking a pasture neither of them have ever seen, by a bridge that neither of them have ever visited.

“Yuck,” she says, followed by, “don’t call me that.” He’s thinner than the last time she saw him, though that could be a byproduct of the dream, and he’s wearing.... She tilts her head, notes the way her hair hits her shoulder, satisfying, human. She frowns, feels the organic pull of the skin on her cheek as she does so. “Are those fucking pantaloons?”

“Hey, I kept the cape, didn’t I?” Dave drawls, setting down the lute and pushing himself up. “You know I don’t usually get much of a say in how these things play out, can’t really predict what we’re gonna have to play with, these ain’t exactly your mother’s dream bubbles, since LE, y’know, destroyed them all.”

“Technically we are exploiting a flaw in paradox space that allows a nonlinear bridge to be crossed and facilitate our conversations,” Rose says.

“Yeah, okay, whatever, possessing other forms of ourselves, not your mother’s dream bubbles, what fucking ever.” He shakes his hands, then his whole body, as if to shrug off the skin he wears. When he’s done, the blink of an eye, the roll of a neck, he stands before her in shining armor, metallic and glinting in the sun, cape heavy and velvet red, ridiculous feathered hat nowhere to be found. He swings his sword over his shoulder with ease, doesn’t flinch when it nearly hits him in the head. “This any better?”

“An obscure reference, but suitable,” she says, and her expression softens as she crosses the long grass to wrap her arms around him. “It’s ten AM local time here, so we’ll have to make it quick. I’ve got quite the day ahead of me, you might imagine.”

“Okay, fucking rude, first of all. I can tell what damn time it is whenever I want. You think space can stand between this man and his passion for time? Fuck no, I am locked in, I  _am_ Time, baby.”

“I imagine that is technically untrue,” Rose says, but she is still smiling as she pulls back to look at him.

“Yeah,” he sighs, keeps his hands tight in the fabric of her skirt when she tries to step back. “I mean, I think I’m just out of practice honestly it’s kinda messed up, maybe? I could probably do with a tune up.” He winces. “No offense.”

“Please, as if I’d give a shit about that.” She rolls her eyes, keeps a hand steady on the cold surface of his chest plate. They’re young here, and the apprehension is more visible on his face than she remembers ever seeing at sixteen. It’s sweet, in a way. “You can ask, you know,” she tells him, and the smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She can hardly say she’d expect any less. Dave is soft, always has been. It is not his greatest flaw.

Dave grimaces, and one of his hands tugs slightly, hesitation and embarrassment. They can hardly afford it, but perhaps that’s the bit of Dirk in her, to think like that. “How uh,” he starts. Stops, clears his throat. “How is he?”

She pinches her lips together, can’t quite stop the wince. There is no easy way to put it into words. To lie would be unfair, after everything Dave has been through. Even if he does not realize it yet. “Doing poorly, afraid to admit it. Currently unsuspecting of our plan, though I can’t see far enough ahead to know if we’ll pull it off without issue. He’s certainly more likely to kick up a fuss, but I sincerely doubt it'd make a difference.”

Dave hums, mumbles something softly under his breath, quiet enough that she can’t quit make it out. How far they did drift, on that Earth of theirs. Perhaps there was some truth to Dirk’s theories, after all, but she prays it’s not too late to reverse it.

Rose touches his face to get his attention, before he starts to spiral. He has never been a particularly sound dreamer, and the way he doesn’t pull away tells her all she needs to know about how anxious he is. “We’ll fix this, Dave, I promise.”

“I dunno what exactly we’re trying to fix anymore,” he mutters, shying away and dropping his head. “At first I was so - mad. Pissed the fuck off. I mean obviously, right? Why the fuck wouldn’t I be? He ruined - it wasn’t supposed to - and if he really did mess with Jane, that’s - This shit is fucked! What he did is fucked! But I still -” He stops, inhales sharp through his nose, bites his lip.

Rose knows what he wants to say, and she’s surprised he’d have the will to abstain from blurting it out. Impressed, really. She does not know him as well as she thought, after all. “Love him?” she finishes, quirking a brow, offering him humor as an escape.

“Aw Rose, yuck,” he says, but he almost smiles, the curve of his mouth shy, uncertain. It is as close to thanks as they will ever get. “Kanaya misses you, by the way. She says hi. She always says hi, dunno why I expect her to say anything else. We went over the whole ‘tell her I’m coming for her’ and me saying Kanaya she knows that, obviously, and no, she won’t let you hurt Dirk, we need him to fix shit, and also we still -” He lets go with one hand to flap it around, clearing his throat again, ears tingeing pink.

Rose’s heart aches at the mention of her wife, a warmth spreading over her. Soothing, comfort. The familiarity of missing someone who truly loves you, and she lets herself smile, pure and genuine.

She does not acknowledge his slip-up, though his words and Dirk's are riddled with them, lately, and it’s as embarrassing as it is funny. She delights in that aspect of their personalities, and it is perhaps one of the things that keeps her going. Kanaya is first on the list. Roxy might be second. “Come, then, come with me,” she sighs, does not hide the affection that seeps into her words, nor the humor. She pulls them both somewhere more recognizable, her hands wrapped around his wrists, and settles more comfortably against the nearest counter of her own kitchen.

She knows immediately that something is wrong, from the immaculate, barren space to the liquor bottles lined neatly along the top of the fridge. She scoffs, a sour taste in her mouth. A slip of her own mind, perhaps. A mistake, invariably. Oh well. Best to ride it out.

Dave frowns uncertainly, discomfited by her choice, and she has to press back against the flush of affection when she sees the uncaring scruff that dots his chin, the shine of his bright white hair in the dim light. He wouldn’t understand, not yet, and she doesn’t have the time to explain. “Am I seriously this tall?” he gripes instead.

She snorts softly, shoves at him. “Only when I’m not wearing heels. Here, let’s sit. I’m tired of awkward standing conversations. Tell me what I’ve missed.”

“Groan,” he monotones, but rocks back to let her get around him before following. “Fell back in with Aradia, just like you said. Wish she hadn’t brought guests, but I can hardly hate on her for needing the company. Kinda feels like it wasn’t really her idea, either, but no one likes solo travel for too long, and paradox is real fuckin’ big, and real fuckin’ cold. With the dream bubbles shattered her whole grim reaper deal ain’t workin’ out, and I think she’s unhappy about the whole thing. She don’t seem to like them any more than we do. Her fault, partially, for ditching Sollux, tbh, but he’s pretty uh. Morbid, I guess.” Rose watches him drag a hand back through his hair as she sits, pats the space beside her in what she hopes is a consoling and invitational way. “Could do without the Jade parade, if we’re being completely transparent, here. She’s agreed to leave us to our own shit, for now, but she might be trouble if we don’t actually ‘stop him’ - her words, not mine. Super fucky, by the way.” He collapses onto the couch, close enough that their knees press together. “Honestly I just want them all to go away. I miss Jade, we miss  _our_  Jade, and this whole -” He waves a hand around in front of him. “Grimbark 2.0, all haunting the ship like a ghost and shit? Along with the other me, who, by the way, super fucking freaky? It’s really startin’ to grind my gears.”

“Is that a robot joke?” Rose asks, thrilled.

“No,” he snaps. “It’s super fucking annoying, actually. He makes me look like a complete moron, what with the, the ultimate ascension bs, and I dunno how he even did it in the first place. He sure as fuck ain’t tellin’. It’s terrifying enough that he’s wearing like, the shades he plucked off his own corpse, but he keeps watching me and Karkat, and I’m the only one who fucking cares! They also call him Davebot, and I kind of hate his stupid face.”

“He was you at some point, you know,” Rose reminds him, but she bites the inside of her cheek to stop a smile.

Dave sighs, wipes a hand down his face. “Yeah like. Vaguely. For five seconds. Only difference is, his Dirk kicked it early on and it fucked him up. Dude’s got mad issues, yo.”

Rose licks her lips, though she doesn’t need to. What she wants to ask is rude, private, and not entirely necessary. She doesn’t stop herself. “Wouldn’t you? If he had -" And then she does, buttons up, bitten cheek for no reason other than the thrill of physical sensation. 

“Christ, Rose,” he mutters, but if he’s mad at her, he doesn’t say. “Of course I would, he’s my fucking - he’s still Dirk, I still want him to.” Dave sighs, drops his gaze. She feels like she’s made a mistake when he starts to idly crack his knuckles, tone short. “I mean, obviously I would be fuckin’. Just wrecked, if I had ever - but it doesn’t matter because he -” He looks up at her, eyebrows knit, expression hurt, fear bleeding throughout their dream until she can almost see red start to pool under the edge of his white shirt. “He wants me to -”

“I know,” she interrupts, reaches out, pushes the hair back out of his eyes. It isn’t particularly gentle, but he doesn’t complain. It’s a foreign motion, the silky filament against her fingers, nothing at all like Kanaya’s, but the versions of her that remember this man warm considerably. “I know, Dave. But we won’t let him do that to you. Not again.”

He inhales through his nose, leans back away from her covers his face with his hands. “Anyway, the Davebot, he. I think something’s messed up with him? He doesn’t really talk about what happened in his timeline, like it doesn’t fuckin’ matter. Kinda suspicious, I guess. Did I tell you he thinks we’re gonna meld together or some shit? Can you fuckin’ believe that?”

Rose stops herself short of wincing, tips her head to the side as she thinks of an appropriate response. She does wonder at the Davebot, how much he must look like Dirk’s brother, how many parts of Dave he must have locked inside him. My, what a joy it would be to peel that apart.

Perhaps that was a touch Dirk-ish of her. She thinks she’s getting a little too bored with her life. What she says is, “You will,” without thinking about it.

Dave drops his hands to look at her, and he can’t possibly be surprised. Surely there was no way this was ever going to unfold in any other direction. “What the fuck.”

She shrugs, crosses her legs carefully, adjusts the fabric of her dress to maintain her modesty for no reason other than habit. “Is it not simply the nature of timelines, Dave? Whether one is doomed or not, or in his case, several iterations of various doomed instances, they are all intrinsically linked, thematically or otherwise. Surely I do not need to explain that to you.” She raises her eyebrows. He doesn’t move. “I am not Terezi, and your decisions do not determine my outcomes, but I can see the most favorable paths, and trust that you will choose correctly, when the time comes. It is not an exact science, or, I am beginning to suspect, any true science at all, but it is all I have at this moment.” Rose offers him a smile, but it feels strained. “What I’m saying is, shit happens, and usually there is a reason for it.”

Dave sighs, full body. She has missed this about him, all fluid motion and over-exaggerated gestures. “Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I probably wouldn’t want to do that, if we’re being honest. He sucks, the game plan blows, and I don’t really understand how I’m supposed to kickstart this whackadoodle idea in the first place.”

Well.

Shit.

Rose chews on her lip, turns the words over in her head. She had been dreading this moment before, but now, knowing how strongly he feels, she dislikes breaking the news to him even more. She knows he will want to say no. Because he is Dave, and because Karkat will also not like it. “In order to succeed, you must be willing to meld.”

Dave goes completely still. It is a unique ability she has only ever seen in Dirk, and a part of her hurts to see him like that. She imagines, for a moment, that she has broken him. “Uh,” he finally says, intelligently.

She cannot allow his doubt to sink in. “You have to become one with the other Dave, if that was not clear. He can get your ship there, weeks ahead of schedule, but you must take over from there.”

The air shudders as if to break, and there is no way for her to stop him. The ripple that follows lands them on the bed of his childhood room, in the dying light of the Houston sunset. He looks at her, blood splattered across a felt green tux, and she knows, then, that he is not nearly as ready as she had hoped. “There ain’t like, a -”

“There is no other way,” she says, and god, how she wishes it weren’t so.

He can’t possibly have a more violent reaction than he’s already having, she thinks, too soon, and Rose ignores the hot liquid that ekes out of her own mouth, how her hands tinge grimdark grey if she squints, ever so slightly. There isn’t time to dwell on this right now, and watching Dave choke on his own blood in a panic isn’t really her idea of a good time.

“We really don’t have time for this,” she says, voice neutral. She doesn’t like to push Dave if she doesn’t have to. It isn’t that he is more or less susceptible (she thinks), it is just how easily he caves to her will, like he wants to, like he’s never wished for anything more. Perhaps it is because he is the first person she reached out to, perhaps it is because they are intrinsically linked, as players of the same game. She does not know. But the devotion, at times, terrifies her. 

Dave gasps for air like a fish out of water, and it’s like he can’t hear her, or doesn’t want to, hands clambering up to grip his throat, and a little bit of red spritzes forth from his neck, hits her in the cheek. The whole room smells like copper, and it drenches him quickly, leaks down the front of his suit, turns his hands slippery and red.

“We certainly need to talk about your preoccupation with your death at a young age,” she says carefully, wondering if she should take his hand, wondering if her words come in twisted tongues. She watches her brother die again before her and thinks how young he was. They were so small at thirteen weren’t they? Too young to be gods. Too young to die. “But you are still alive, Dave, you’re not really here, this isn’t -”

Dave groans, low, pained, and his suit flickers red and velvet, riddled with stab wounds, and he pukes blood straight into a pile of cords on the floor, once, then again. There are bits and pieces of him that remain present, she notes as he panics, one hand curled tight into the fabric of his pants, foot jittering to the beat of something she cannot hear.

Black sludge drips from her nose as Rose leans over to - what? Grab him? Stop whatever this is supposed to be? Anxiety, hysteria. “Dave,” she says again, and she can’t stop the exasperation from creeping in, “Christ, it’s been years. Are we seriously going to replay the greatest hits right now?”

“Depends on how much time you’ve got,” he manages, spitting yellow blood like liquid gold, and she settles for smoothing a hand over the shredded back of his raglan shirt, riddled with bullet holes.

This is her fault, really. She should have known better, she shouldn’t have pushed, she should have waited, but they don’t have time, there’s no more time. She should have sat him down properly before she said anything. Stupid, so stupid. How presumptuous, to assume her brother would be willing to forfeit his (inconsequential at this moment, if she is being honest) identity so easily.

They really do not have time to play games. Minutes tick by in the real world at quarter speed, but there are precious few before he realizes she is missing, stretches out his mind to find hers wandering. He is curious, Dirk, she will give him that.

Fuck, she thinks, hand curling around the sword lanced through his back.

Well, she did try to avoid this.

"This isn’t real," she says, and cool tones of purple drip over her words, like aloe on a burn, ointment on the cut, there to soothe, to calm, to neutralize. “Dave, our time is very short. None of this is real, it’s all just a dream.”

“No, I,” he chokes, and the blood comes yellow again, pooling out of his mouth like water from a fountain. Disturbing, if beautiful. He coughs, spits up bright orange feathers. “I know. I know that, I can - I didn’t mean to -” He shudders, curls further into himself. He’s getting stronger, she notes with a wince. Good, he’ll need that. But not right now. Rose prays he’ll forgive her, and pushes harder.

“You’re okay. Everything is okay. You’re dreaming. It’s just a dream.”

“Okay,” he says weakly, and she feels the grey shed away as they drop into his room on Derse’s moon, violet from wall to wall, the warmth of her pajamas against her skin.  
Dave inhales deep and holds, and by the time he lets it out, his pajamas are soft and dry beneath her fingers. The sword remains lodged in his sternum and it’s not until he uncurls, wraps a hand around the hilt and JERKS, that it disappears with a sickening _pop_. Rose would be impressed if she were not so disturbed. His nose does continue to bleed, but he brushes her away when she reaches out, and it finally stops when he sniffs, wipes the back of his hand across his face.

“That was certainly a show,” she says after a moment.

He scowls at the floor, doesn’t look at her. “Fuck off.”

“It doesn’t have to be permanent,” she reassures. “In fact, I wouldn’t recommend it. You will need him for a short time if you wish to hold your own against Dirk. He will not hurt you, but he won’t make it easy, either.”

Dave winces, pushes himself up, and when he turns back around, he looks very much how she imagines he must be now, same old godtier gear, hair a little shorter, a frown creasing the space betwixt his brow. “But what if he changes his fucking mind? I mean he’s like, kind of batshit right now, isn’t he? What if he decides _actually, FUCK Dave, I’m gonna kick this guy’s ass to hell and back_.”

“He will not,” Rose says confidently, opens her arms for him to fall into one last time.

He hesitates, and she can hardly blame him, can she. But like all things with Dave, he eventually caves, drops to his knees before her, plants his face into the orange fabric at her waist.

She folds her arms carefully over his shoulders, pets absently at his hair. It won’t be necessary much longer. They will see each other soon. “Every version of Dirk loves every version of Dave. It is simply a fact of this universe, and all others. You need only to appear confident. I assure you, when presented with the potential for your personal forgiveness, the prince will cave.”

“What if I can’t do it?” Dave all but whines, voice muffled, and Rose just barely manages to prevent the roll of her eyes.

“You can and you will,” she says. It is not just that she believes in him; she is not Jake, and her hope is significantly worthless in comparison. Dave is stronger than he knows, and beyond her belief, her desire to succeed is deep-seated and tragic. To let Dirk go would be a failure, and she does not think he could survive that. “Your connection to the Davebot, your ultimate self, will be brief. It will be impermanent. We’ll separate you later. I’ll show you how.”

He hums against her, tightens his grip. “Okay, but consider also: I don’t wanna.”

“I know,” she says, and she almost smiles, picks at the threads of his hood. “I’m sorry. If there were any other way, I would tell you. I swear.”

He lets out a shuddering sigh, pulls back to sit on his feet. Dave has never been short, but he looks small, uncertain and terrified. Perhaps he should be. “Okay, so how do I do it?”

She snorts, keeps her expression smooth, skeptical. “Do I look like a teacher to you?”

“Uh,” he says, scratches at an eyebrow. “I dunno, I feel like maybe we never -”

“Exactly. Now go and just.” She pats his shoulders. “Get in there.”

Dave opens his mouth, closes it, frowns. “Are you seriously ‘get in the robot Shinji-ing’ me right now?”

She cannot stop the grin that curls on her mouth, shark-like, playful. “I would venture to say it is HE who will be getting inside YOU -”

“Gross.”

“- But yes. But hurry the fuck up. There isn’t much time to spare.”

“Yeah,” Dave says, but he doesn’t move. Lets out a shuddering breath. “Yeah. See you tomorrow, sis.”  
“I must insist you refrain from calling me that any longer. It is disturbingly unlike you.”

“Fuck you, you don’t know me,” he huffs. “But you’re probably right. Goodnight, I guess.”

She nods. “If anything changes, I will let you know.”  
He crooks a smile, eyebrows bunched. “Should I bother to ask how?”

“No,” Rose says, leaning forward to press her lips to his forehead. “Goodbye, Dave.”

“Yeah, okay. Bye, Rose.”

 

The dream fades away in slow motion, and the last thing she feels is the way his calluses snag on her seer robes before she surfaces.  
She imagines, then, were she to have human eyes, they might be damp with tears.

Well. No use crying now, she thinks, because it's physically impossible, and because she has work to do.

She unplugs from the system, takes one last good look at herself. It isn't so bad, really. No headaches, no aches or pains or ways to hurt herself (at least none that she has found. She could probably try a little harder if she truly meant to).

The first thing she will do when she is human again, she thinks, as she leaves to seek audience with the shittiest prince their universe has ever known, is kiss Kanaya again.

The second will be to shed her ultimate identities like skin.

She finds Dirk on the bridge. He very rarely does much here. That has always been her job, though she thinks he’s more suited for it.

“It doesn’t interest me,” he says now, and it’s ridiculous that he stands like that, she thinks, arms folded behind his back like he’s in some kind of anime. He snorts, but doesn’t comment.

“I think it bothers you that Jake is the one whose company produced the ship in the first place,” Rose tells him. “Aside from being gaudy and vaguely shark-shaped, it does run itself quite well. I’ll admit I’m impressed with its durability, given the passage of time.” She crosses around the opposite side to check their progress on their shuttle's landing preparation. She may not have come with Dirk willingly, but that does not mean she disagrees with him entirely. She can see now, the frivolity of their state of being on that world. Perhaps that thought belongs to her, perhaps it doesn’t. That planet was never meant to bear the seed of a new session, and quite frankly she would not want it to. No, it will not see action again until the death of their solar system, and at that point it will no longer matter. This new world, this will give them something to rule over. To make relevant. It is exciting, truly, to have a purpose again.

“See, that’s what I’m fuckin’ saying,” Dirk says, choosing to ignore her previous jab.

“It’ll still be a day or three more before the shuttle is ready, I’m afraid,” Rose sighs, swiping through the status screens. They could do with more time, really, but the clock is counting down at unreasonable speeds, and there isn’t much they could do to stop it, even if they tried. She sinks down into the copilot chair, crosses her legs on automatic. “Though I suppose after almost two years, that shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise.”

“No, I suppose not,” Dirk says softly, as if lost in thought.

It is more commonplace these days, for him to keep to himself, and perhaps that is a sign of change, or perhaps it is time he admits he is losing control.

“Watch it,” he snaps, and the ferocity with which he yanks back the reins is a show of defensive masculinity Rose could do without.

Dirk sighs heavily out the nose, annoyance, exhaustion, and frees an arm to rub at the place where his shades dig in. Rose does have a point. There is no need to be rude twice in a day.

A part of him really does just want to lie down and take a nap. It’s almost amusing, really. Or would be, if it were not the same piece that constantly wants to take a nap, and disapproves of his actions with less emotion than any of the others. Hypocrite.

His gut twists and he bites back on a wince, swallows bile. He will not do this. Not right now.

There is no need to announce his departure, so he doesn’t, and Dirk wanders back towards the central chambers without apologizing. He will remember this later, maybe come to regret it in the long run. It will be part of a long list of things.

If he reaches out far enough, he can almost taste the metallic edges of another Skaianet ship, feel bubblegum text folded carefully around bright, crimson red.

Might be about time for him to start writing that shit down, after all.

All in due time, of course. They’re days out, he estimates, and there is much to be done.

Contrary to Rose’s belief, he does know she enjoys sitting beside herself, and the joke to be made there is almost funny enough to warrant a laugh. Would be, if he were anybody else.

(At this point I am certain that most people I know wish I were anybody else, including me.)

He has yet to care enough to see what she does here. It seems to be more or less the same thing, and it’s boring to watch a robot sleep. Or not sleep, really. He doesn’t have time to run an internal debate on whether androids truly do dream of electric sheep.

Irons in the fire, etc, etc.

He does check on her body in person, at least once a day. He hasn’t told her yet, doesn’t care if she wonders at all. Roxy would kill him if anything happened to her. Dave too, though that’s the goal, isn’t it? The moment he’s been waiting for. He skims a hand along the wall panel, reads her vitals with a practiced eye, finds them satisfactory. Steady, even. A bit of a spike from Rose’s presence, nothing to sniff around. If she wants so badly to return to her dying vessel, perhaps he should let her. Let her see what happens.

No. Unacceptable. No harm will come to her. He will fix this, he thinks, presses a hand against the glass. One day, when everything is ready. When they’re both strong enough. He will fix this.

A memory falls to the forefront of his mind, like water tumbling through his fingertips. Climbing stairs in 3/4 time, a length of rope curled so perfectly in his hands. A narrative choice all his own. Fighting the will of a being who believed themselves to be stronger. But he proved them wrong, didn’t he? He died, or didn’t die, and he won, he succeeded, he got this far, didn’t he?

Dirk shudders, full body as he pulls himself back together, drags all the pieces back inside and sews himself up hastily.

We ain’t got time for that shit.

It has not been an easy process, time taken, sleep lost, years wasted. I daresay some days, I think I shouldn’t have bothered. Maybe if I had tried to spend more time _being_ , I wouldn’t have let this

But to admit that would be to call my own decision a mistake, and I’m not sure I really believe that. Being the villain of a B-rated epilogue to a story no one wanted to continue isn’t exactly what I’d call a dream job, but hey, some motherfucker’s gotta do it. May as well be me. I’d argue there’s no better man for the job.

Dirk shakes himself free from the stillness of an internal monologue, moves towards the back of the room, to the elevators. There’s no need for him to use one, but sometimes the novelty of the whole experience is all a dude needs after a long damn day.

He is also, just to note, acutely aware it’s barely twelve in the goddamn afternoon.

The third level laboratories aren’t much of a sight to behold. They’re dim lit and messy, littered with mechanical detritus and various electronics, thrown around the room in a way that is almost too perfectly random. Dirk likes it that way. It nearly feels like he’s home, like there’s a little piece of himself that still exists the way he was meant to. There is no need to clean, he thinks, somewhat defensively, when you know where everything is.

It’s here that he does most of his work. Hobby stuff, bits of scrap from simpler times, things to keep his hands busy. It’s almost soothing, to watch his hands spin and weld and create. It is his preferred way to pass the time, when he’s not dreaming up ways to update Rose’s hardware, make her function better. He’d like her to be able to feel something, if at all possible. He’s not entirely sure how, just yet. It’ll take some genuine research, perhaps her assistance, if she’ll humor him.

He hasn’t earned back enough of her trust for that, though, has he? He’s done nothing these past few years but break down every bit of every good relationship he’s ever had into tiny little pieces, sharp and fragile, crushed into dust, and then, like a fool, he never bothered to put them back together. He’s lost all of them, in one way or another, and maybe he deserves that. He definitely deserves that. To be alone, to let them go.

All except -

Well.

Well maybe it was  _Dave_ that kept them together. Who clung so tight to the idea of Dirk that he forgot he was supposed to let go. Who never made Dirk work hard to be important in his life, who just let him in because he was Dirk, and because  _he_ was _Dave_.

Maybe Dirk never let Dave go because he never had to. Dave didn’t care if he became withdrawn, if he only ever answered one text out of twenty, if he went missing for weeks, showed up unannounced without a word of apology. He always welcomed him back, time and time again.

Dirk does not deserve that kindness, but we rarely get to choose the people who care about us.

Out of everyone he’d ever known, Dave is the one person who he had never wanted to change.

And he fucked that up too, didn’t he?

 _“Fuck,”_ Dirk says out loud, for all to hear. It’s raw in his throat, choked with something he’s tried so, so hard to suppress. He crosses the room in four strides, long legs and anxious steps, and collapses back into his work chair, pushes both hands up under his shades to press at his eyes until he can see stars. “Fuck.”

He will not submit to the fragility of human emotion for one, singular person when he as so much more to work for, he simply cannot afford the luxury. He tries to squash it down, but it lives there in his chest, a memory, a testament to devotion.

“Fuck.”

And perhaps instead of dwelling on his failures, on past mistakes and regrets, perhaps he should have been paying more attention to that little blip of crimson red that lives in the corner of his mind.

Then he might have noticed that something hells of fucking suspect was happening, somewhere out in paradox space, and it was headed right for them.

He feels the ship rock despite the artificial gravity and doesn’t flinch when his chair rolls across the room, bumps ever so lightly against the far wall.

“Fuck,” he says again, but this time thoughtful, surprised but not nearly as caught off guard as one might have imagined. He reaches out his fingers and wraps them tight back into the narrative, tugs (it’s harder, it’s getting harder, maybe he’s imagining it, maybe he’s just tired, maybe he just needs to rest).

Well well.

It seems I have underestimated them.

There is no hesitation when I reach out this time, and I feel Dave’s presence in a wave of red I’m not expecting, racing thoughts and tangled timelines. I must say, I wasn’t expecting this turn of events. A leap through space on that scale would be costly, for anyone else.   
I equip my katana, toss my hoodie to the side, and head towards the hypergravity chamber.

If there is a showdown to be had, it is best to give it a stage.

My travel finds Terezi catching Karkat first, and that’ll slow him down, at least. Hopefully for a considerably long time. Rose will seek out Kanaya, and because she knows me well enough, if she wishes to point them in my direction, it will be after a proper reunion. Rose knows I am in no hurry. I never truly have been, and I would wait for Dave all night. I would wait for him all week. 

Cue the banjo music.

I don’t care to extrapolate on the sentimentality of my family, extended or otherwise. Rose kisses Kanaya, tells her she can’t murder me. She's disappointed, Rose says no, Kanaya, it's not that simple They’re going to play catchup. Roxy thinks Rose’s new body looks sick. If Rose could manage a bitter smile, it would stretch across her mouth in a cruel line.

It is Dave I care to see, the man we have all been waiting for.

The man I have been waiting for.

A shiver up the spine, anticipation, finality. It’s early. The planet has not been settled. They’ll have to continue on without me, then. Maybe they won’t want to, but I have faith they may finally realize that I am in the right, here. 

But we don’t care to watch my descent, do we? Who the fuck cares about the intricacies of an elevator ride The dramatic flare is best saved for a reveal of epic proportions.

We want to see what Dave is up to.

It is with ease that I do it. Simple, easiest thing I’ve ever done. Delicate thing, the written word, moreso if you don’t know how to handle it. Carefully, hands wrapped tight in the strings, without hesitation, without thinking further, because why would I, with nothing to fear, with very little left to hide, I let Dave have

control of the narrative.

but dave doesnt want control has never wanted control

at least not in the way everyone expects not in the way everyone wants him to

cant even believe this shit its not like the rides been easy but one burden was e-fucking-nough ya dig this is just ridiculous were out here watching as the narrative pile doesnt stop from getting taller fucks sake

dave doesnt need the control and honestly,  


third person limited perspective works just fine for him.

It rolls over him with sickening force, like a tidal wave, words and emotions, fear and anger and love, overwhelming, nausea-inducing adoration, and it nearly brings him to his knees.

It is worse than melding with the Davebot, the feeling of being split open and carved into pieces before he’s folded back together. Dave bites his tongue, spits blood on the floor. He knows, staring at the way his hands begin to shake, where he will find Dirk.

He just doesn't know if he's ready.

Rose is watching him, and he sees her first as he lifts his head, when he realizes he just made a spectacle of himself in front of half his fucking family. God, he is so uncool

But Rose, the Rosebot, she doesn’t speak, just nods briefly. Terse. The plan starts here. It must start, right here, right now.

“I’ll be back,” he promises, like a Knight swearing fealty, like any Dave has ever promised himself to the Seer of Light, across timelines, across spans of existence. They are an incredible tactical team. It is time to put their talent to work.

Davebot lives beneath his skin, closer to the surface than all the others, and walking towards the elevator, he imagines he can feel the circuits moving under his skin, grating against his insides. It is an uncomfortable sensation, this idea of the ultimate self, so many Daves squeezed inside he feels like he may split at the seams.   
He might not make it to Dirk, he might not make it anywhere because all he wants to do is DIE, to let go, to let someone else have the reins.

But he won’t.

He can’t.

Dirk needs him.

And Dave, he needs

He needs to put an end to this charade.

Dirk is waiting for him in the pits of the ship, just like Rose said he would, always a flair for the dramatic, his brother, always the center of attention whenever he craves it.

There is a part of him that falls apart at the sight of him, white T-shirt, fingerless gloves, stupid black hat wedged over his head.

There are pieces of Bro that shine through like starlight, specks in a void. The Davebot sees his brother’s head tumble across the grass, then cradled in his hands.

Dirk winces, and Dave knows he remembers, too.

“Hey,” Dave says, because to sit in silence would kill him, would sink into him like teeth into a corpse, and he cannot exist peacefully in that space, cannot handle the decay of comfort that spans the air between them.

“Didn’t think you’d be here so soon,” Dirk says lightly, and he flicks his hand, equips his katana. “Come to kill me?”

“No,” Dave spits, and he will not be moved, he will not be goaded. That isn’t what he’s here to do.

“Too bad,” he sighs, as if Dave is a disappointment, as if he is a let down. “Because I was under the impression that that was  _exactly_ what you were here to do.”

Dirk steps like lightning, but Dave doesn’t flinch, doesn’t need his powers, not yet. Caledfwlch comes up to block in a singular motion and it is lack of practice folded into years of ease, a war hero at the helm for the thirty seconds it takes him to push Dirk back and swing at his left, trying to disarm. Dirk doesn’t fall for it, dances away, circles around his back.

“Come now, surely you can do better than that.”

“I don’t want to,” Dave gripes, ducking, rolling back up on the opposite side of the arena. “C’mon, dude, can we please cut the shitty ninja bullshit?”

Dirk scoffs, comes at him again.

Dave swears, flashsteps away just in time to avoid an impromptu haircut. There aren’t a lot of ways to stop Dirk when he’s like this (but he’s never been like this, he’s never SEEN him this way, what the fuck, what the fuck is he supposed to do) but Dave trusts him.

Or he doesn’t, but he wants to, so, so desperately.

It is with foolish belief that he makes his next move, and with more force than a twenty-something dude should have, he takes his sword and buries it into the floor.

Dirk screeches to a halt, just for a moment, and Dave stutters backward in a time beat, left foot, right foot, one second, two. He finds himself in the center of the room and curses softly.

Okay, he can work with this. It’s. Fine, he guesses. He doesn’t even want to fight. He just wants him to come home.

Dirk hesitates for a moment, clearly not expecting it, but he doesn’t drop his sword, just takes a second to regard Dave from afar, licks his lips, pinches them together. There’s frustration there, clear as day, but a little part of Dave feels like he’s gained some ground, even if his brother is essentially blocking the only door.

“I don’t need to say what the fuck, do I?” he monotones, keeps his gaze steady, doesn’t let Dirk see his lip wobble, doesn’t let him see his hands shake. He lets him circle like a big cat, long legs and sharp eyes, isn’t concerned at all because this isn’t Bro, Dirk becoming this thing was never about him being Bro. The only person Dirk has ever been is himself.

He just has to decide what that means.

“It’s not that simple,” Dirk says, in reply to Dave’s cool pacifism. He pushes lightly at the edges of his brother's control, but the tightness in Dave’s jaw, the fragile way his brow bunches together, Dirk’s words, shaded orange, fade into neutral black. “I cannot allow the narrative to fall into irrelevance.”

“I don’t really know what that means,” he offers, and Dave’s insides still squirm, and he bows and breaks under the pressure, builds back up and caves all over again in rolling waves, quick as glass breaking. The parts of him that belonged to the Davebot twist and turn into pieces, shards of glass that cut at his soul at the sight of Dirk, here and whole, not dead not dead Jesus Christ he’s alive he’s okay. It’s at least a good a place to start as any. With your greatest unhappiness.

And because you’re Dave, you cave into that moment, cave to the reality that this Dirk played a hand in killing your own, whether he truly meant to or not. Dirk killed himself. He  _killed_ himself, willingly, and for what? For this?

And against every part of you, every piece of you that has ever ached for the loss of him, you did nothing to change it.

Maybe this is your fault, after all. Maybe the part you played in the acceptance of his death as a cold hard fact is what led you to losing Rose, to losing Karkat and Jade ad everyone you ever cared about.

If you had just done _more_ , if you had checked in on him, if you had been there, if you had _tried_ , then he

“No,” Dirk says suddenly, and without prompting.

Dave doesn’t need it. He knows just fine what the voice represents, the power it holds, and he knows it’s not something to fear, not as long as you let it _be_.

“I don’t care about that,” Dirk says, and there is aggravation there, something almost human in him, just for a moment. “The failure of that timeline was inevitable. I had no choice.”

And then Dave says something so much like an anime protagonist we almost forget he’s the one in control. Or perhaps it’s more fitting that way. Suits him, really. “There’s always a choice.”

Dirk pauses, and Dave imagines he can see his grip on the sword loose, just for a moment. Surprise, perhaps a dash of hope. He doesn’t move as Dirk circles him again. He looks so much like Bro, fuck, of course he does, from the lithe, bad-postured frame to the cut of his jaw as he moves in, sword close enough to cut, were he to swing. It should make him more terrifying.

Dave thinks it makes him more beautiful.

Dirk snorts at that, caustic, disbelieving. Not that it matters. Dave can see now, the way his ears turn pink, how it crawls across his cheeks. Dirk has never been comfortable with compliments. He is startlingly transparent in that respect.

“That’s rude,” he scoffs.

Dave shrugs. “Callin’ it like I see it, man. And if you didn’t like it, you’d stop me.” He tips his head, flexes his hands at his sides. He doesn’t want to come across as nervous, because what would that accomplish, but the other parts of himself burn at him, eating away at his soul, his heart, bit by bit. They don’t have a lot of time. Rose told him, she warned him, dog. He feels at the edges of the narrative like fingers rubbing a piece of fabric between them, testing its elasticity. He sees Karkat, bent over John’s prone form, feels his stomach rock at the blood that still stains his shirt. He sees Terezi, touching Karkat’s arm, knows that the two of them will be safe, together. Rose sits on the bridge with Roxy and Kanaya, holding a hand each, and she smiles, the best she is able, and her eyes are bright violet, manage warmth despite the artifice of her form.

He takes a breath.

Cool.

Cool cool cool. Everything on their end is okay. It worked. He’s fuckin’ carrying the whole goddamn team right now, sure, and it sucks, yes, it sucks so fucking much he cannot believe he agreed to this, and he can feel his ribs being pushed out, can barely breathe to hold himself together, but it’s cool.

“Dave,” Dirk says, and it’s soft, it’s almost kind. He does not drop his sword, but he lifts a gloved hand, as if to touch, before aborting the motion.

jesus christ

“So it’s true, huh,” Dave says, watches a frown mangle Dirk’s face, bunched eyebrows and burning orange eyes.

Dirk sucks in air through his teeth, winces, takes a step back. He doesn’t look at Dave, at first, like he can’t stand the thought, like it makes him nauseous. Could be the splinters. Dave’s not entirely sure about that. “I -” he starts, stops.

“Fuck,” Dave says, and Dirk nods in agreement. He drags a hand down his face, then pushes both of them up under his shades. Perhaps he shouldn’t trust Dirk this much. He doesn’t really care about that, though. fuck.  “Karkat is gonna be absolutely unbearable after this.”

Dirk almost laughs, then, a soft breath out the mouth, and Dave peeks through his fingers just in time to see him school his face back into a neutral expression. “More transparent than I thought, huh?” he murmurs, but he can’t quite keep the strain out of his voice.

“Nah,” Dave says, swallows heavily. “I always kinda - well it’s different. We’re - but that isn’t like - uh.” He clears his throat, drops his hands. The sound his knuckles make when they pop reminds him of breaking bones. “You know?”

“No,” Dirk scoffs, rolls his eyes behind his shades. “Absolutely none of that was a complete sentence, Dave.”

“Okay, well first of all, fuck you. I am out here, bearing my soul while both of us are fucking _dying_ , and you’re being kind of a tool about it,” he says, doesn’t mean to, can’t really stop himself. “You think I’m not mad? I’m fucking pissed, dude. The shit you did is fucking insane. I’m pretty sure at this point  _you're_ insane, but that doesn’t mean I don’t - that you can’t be - ugh.” Dave throws his hands up for lack of proper words. “You want me to say I think you’re a good guy? I can’t. But just cuz you’re kinda shitty doesn’t mean you have to be ‘stopped’ or whatever the fuck you want, you sick fuck.”

Dirk does laugh at that, a stutter of air out his nose, and Dave swears he can see the smile break the line of his mouth.

It’s that moment right there, seeing him smile again, seeing the bits and pieces of Dirk that are so undeniably human, that break Dave. He drops his shoulders, inhales through his nose, exhales through the mouth. There’s no place for his anger, not right here. Not on Dirk’s turf. “I won’t force you to come with me,” he says.

Dirk scowls, but there is a second where his confidence wavers, where the soft parts of him, the parts desperate for forgiveness, bleed through like a fatal wound. “I won’t give you a choice,” he says, hesitant.   
Hesitant is good, it gives Dave an in. It’s a crack in his facade, it’s the key to a victory he can’t quite smell.

He smiles and it comes so easily for him, so easily in front of Dirk, with his messy blonde hair and dark eyebrows knit together, not a scowl, not quite frustration. “You’ll always give me a choice.”

And he will, won’t he. Dirk always gives Dave whatever the fuck he wants. It’s one of the biggest flaws in his design, the glitch in the system.

Dirk sheds the splinter like a second skin, in pieces torn from him like those weird lizards that eat their own. It sloughs off of him and to the floor, shades of green and red in a pile of mulch that dissolves into pixels.

Whatever the fuck that was, Dave is not going to question it, but Dirk shakes, gags, and pukes blood like oil onto the arena. It’s.

Okay, it’s really fuckin’ gross.

Dave is grossed the fuck out.

But he’s not that much of a hypocrite, and he steps towards Dirk, one foot at a time. When he doesn’t flinch back, he moves closer. “We can help,” he tries, soft, pained. “Me ‘n Rose. Maybe get Jane’s head screwed back on, get her to fuckin’ - you know I don’t really know. I feel like I’m gonna explode. Do you feel like you’re gonna explode? Never considered myself claustrophobic before but this shit is goddamn unbearable. Not to quote a dead meme but damn bitch, you live like this?”

Dirk lets out a rusty laugh and it’s Bro in inches and fractals. Dave does not shy away. There are always good parts of a Dirk. You just have to find them. “You’re entirely too optimistic about the outcome of this venture,” he croaks, but he whirls his katana around in a showy arc before it disappears neatly into his sylladex. “How the fuck am I supposed to fight you?”

“You’re not,” Dave mumbles, and he’s close enough to touch, does, wraps his hand into the blood-spattered front of his brother’s shirt and drags him close. “You’re supposed to give up.”

And Dirk does cave, there in that moment. And it’s not beautiful when he does it, adam’s apple bobbing, hands shaking from exhaustion because he can’t just let  _go._

When Dirk caves into Dave it is not cataclysmic. It is not dramatic or poetic or anything resembling pretty, because life is not at all about what’s most beautiful,  as much as it is, and perhaps we all should have known, in the end, exactly where they would end up.

Together, standing with heads bowed in the middle of a cold, empty room on a cold, empty ship with a man who has, just for a moment, forgotten who he is.

Dirk curls into Dave’s space with only the slightest tip of his chin, and Dave reaches up, takes off his hat, pulls a hand back through the tangled strands.

“You need a shower,” he says lightly. Fond, as if Dirk has not destroyed so much, has not ruined so many lives.

“I know,” Dirk says, a murmur by his ear. His shoulders tremble, and Dave thinks about how slim he looks, how he’s never been good at remembering to eat, to take care of himself, how Dirk alone, how Dirk with Jake, has never been good for any of them.

“It wasn’t all bad,” Dirk says, and the words he speaks to the narrative are tinged orange with desperation, deep shame. Dave does not push back against them because all he’s doing is arguing, anyway, because he likes to, and it makes him feel safe. He can allow him that peace of mind, for as long as it will last. “We had fun, for awhile. Living together, building robots and gettin’ famous. Wasn’t as fucked up as I made it sound.”

“Your show was a piece of shit,” His hand cups the back of Dirk’s neck, thumb pressing into the knobs of his spine, and Dirk shivers. Thrill, anticipation.

“I won’t kill you,” Dave tells him, a graveled whisper, sad and low.

“I want you to,” Dirk whispers, and he turns his head so that his lips brush Dave’s cheek, an indulgence he’ll allow himself, just this once. “I want you to.”

“Never,” Dave says, and his word is red like blood, like his eyes, lidded and visible to Dirk as he touches his face, curves Dirk back to face him.

There is nothing remarkable about their first kiss. It is chaste, chapped lips to chapped lips.

The second tastes like blood, leaves him wanting a third, and Dirk drifts into Dave as he pulls back, just an inch.

When he opens his eyes to protest, Dave is staring at him, cups his cheek and runs a callused thumb across his cheekbone. It is as soft as it is desperate when Dave speaks again, and he says, “Come home.”

And Dirk says, “I don’t know what that means anymore.”

And Dave says, “That’s okay. We’ll figure it out together.”

And Dirk says, “Okay.”

When they ascend to the bridge, both shedding pieces of themselves as they go, stumbling and shuddering, it is not beautiful, either, stilted and messy, blood and viscera, but they are together as they are stripped to the most basic pieces of themselves, and as a white coat drops from Dirk’s shoulders, as Dave pukes nuts and bolts like loose teeth, he finally, finally, lets go of the narrative.

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings include: suicide mention, incest, graphic descriptions of blood, some gore, kisses, lots of swearing, Dirk being an asshole, vaguely open ending, extremely vague references a la dream bubble (sort of), and a lot of shifting color shit, please feel free to ask me to add!!
> 
> I should uhhhm maybe write a sequel lmfao


End file.
